Grower in search of a happy ending in fairy shrimp tale

Clements grape grower Brad Goehring decided to challenge Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, in part because of a dispute with federal regulators over fairy shrimp on his Clements land.

Michael Fitzgerald

Clements grape grower Brad Goehring decided to challenge Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Pleasanton, in part because of a dispute with federal regulators over fairy shrimp on his Clements land.

Funny thing about that. I sold Goehring the fairy shrimp.

I sold him the land on which he lives, the land on which fairy shrimp also allegedly live, the land on which he grows grapes.

"It's your fault," he joked of his candidacy.

Some things you do not see coming.

Since I'm going to cover Goehring, this connection will have to be disclosed. So here you go.

It was in 2000 that Goehring, whom I didn't know, made me an offer on my late father's 43-acre cattle pasture. He lived on the ranch next door to it. So I sold it to him.

Or tried to. The sale triggered provisions of the Endangered Species Act.

A "wetlands team" from the local Natural Resources Conservation Board - we were talking about those things you don't see coming? - sifted the land for endangered species and wetlands.

They declared certain swails and mud holes habitat for Branchinecta lynchi, the controversial vernal pool fairy shrimp. I'd never seen one. Or dreamed they might be there.

An orange, 1-inch wimp of a crustacean with compound eyes on stalks, the fairy shrimp was, in fact, never seen, period. The little things are ephemeral, living but a few wintry weeks. So the feds look for its habitat instead.

If you have the habitat, you are deemed to have the fairy shrimp; to my mind, a glaring flaw in the Endangered Species Act, which I otherwise support.

Tearing up vernal pools to plant crops is verboten. The reduction in arable land reduced the value of my property by $10,000. That little shrimp put the hurt on me.

According to Goehring, the feds were much rougher on him. After he bought the land, and planted vineyards across it, he had an epic battle with them, he says.

"One afternoon a blacked-out Suburban showed up," Goehring recounted. "They caught my dad at the fence line at Acampo Road and asked them how they could find me. That's how the whole thing started."

The inspectors accused Goehring of destroying fairy shrimp habitat on my former land as well as another parcel he acquired to the east of it, Goehring said.

"They formally charged me with 'Filling and Destroying the Waters of the United States,' Goehring said with that dry humor farmers use when describing a world gone mad. "Along with that I was facing jail and $100,000 a day penalties."

Federal officials slapped Goehring with a cease and desist order, prohibiting him from tilling the land until the issues were settled, he said.

Goehring said he had always been interested in politics. But his alleged mauling by Uncle Sam convinced him the county is straying from its conservative principles safeguarding property rights.

"It's criminalizing farming," he said.

The case dragged on for years, Goehring said.

"Here I was - I got little kids - and I'm actually faced potentially with going to jail," Goehring marveled. "How can I just one day be running my normal business, and the next day facing going to jail, paying fines and being wiped out by our government, which should be protecting us?"

The law imposes a five-year statute of limitations from the final action by regulators. "They came back within two days of it," to keep the case open an additional five years, Goehring said.

Snorted Goehring, "It's a flippin' joke."

Around the time of all this, Washington lawmakers began contemplating an expansion of the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Restoration Act (S.787) would give government even wider jurisdiction over U.S. waters.

Goehring, thoroughly galvanized, became a leading opponent of this legislation, flying regularly to Washington, lobbying and testifying before committees.

"I'm a conservative first. I'm also a constitutionalist. I believe in what our founding fathers had intended, via the constitution, for our country," Goehring proclaimed. "And the protections of our freedom and liberty."

There will be time to scrutinize Goehring, his principles and his platform - even his fairy shrimp case. For now I just wanted to explain how I came to be in the "origins" issue of Goehring's political saga.